


three pomegranate seeds

by Kalgalen



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-typical alcohol abuse, Juno's Fixation On Nureyev's Cologne, M/M, Not Really Character Death, Reunion Fic, uuh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-22 16:04:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12485464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalgalen/pseuds/Kalgalen
Summary: It's been two years since Juno left his chance at a better life asleep in a hotel room. It's for the best. He made his choice, and he doesn't regret it. Hedoesn't.He's over it.That is, until a mysterious package shows up on his desk.





	three pomegranate seeds

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was born from my need for those two to have a decent explanation (even though it's already been written about A Lot) and also from my own need to mourn my girlfriend who passed away almost two years ago and yeah it still kinda hurts to smell her perfume sO Junebug gets to be angsty about it too. There.
> 
> Special thanks to SerenStone for beta-reading and stopping me from embarassing myself with terrible typos :D

He finds the package on his desk a Monday morning, sitting there right in the middle of the area that's clear of papers and blaster clips and of the other junk that's covering his desk - as if, somehow, it has always belonged there. And this should have been enough to give him an idea of the origin of the package; after all, very few people have managed to get past Juno Steel's defences and into his life with such ease.

Still, they have received explosive packages before, and it is a Monday. This is not a day good things happen on.

"Rita!" he calls over his shoulder.

He hears Rita's chair creak as she bends over her desk to get a look into his office.

"Yes, Mister Steel?"

"Who dropped that off and when?"

"The package, you mean? A delivery guy brought it on Friday when you were out on that Anton case. How did that go, by the way?"

The Anton case had concerned a shoddy business of embryo smuggling. He had managed to catch the culprit, but not before running back and forth through half a dozen of blocks interconnected by stairs he would have had difficulty climbing at such a punishing pace at the peak of his physical shape, much less at forty with his lungs threatening to quit on him and his entire body loudly reminding him of his age whenever he had to pursue anyone. He'd never meant to live that long.

"I'll tell you later," he says, dismissing the question. "That delivery guy, did he seem trustworthy?"

Rita makes an “I-don't-know” noise.

"As trustworthy as anyone in this city can look, I guess. He did drop a bunch of other mail with it, though, that's a good sign, right? Ooooh," she coos, and her desk cracks in protest as she leans further on it - trying to see past him and peek at the package, he supposes. "Do you think it's a bomb? Should we call someone?"

Juno glances back at her, and sure enough, she's sprawled across her desk, probably messing up a number of important papers in her attempt to satisfy her curiosity.

"Nah," Juno says, waving a hand. "If it is a bomb, it's too small to do any real damage anyway." Except to the person opening it, he doesn't specify.

He steps further in his office and closes the door, ignoring Rita's disappointed whine. If she wants entertainment, she's got that stupid tv set.

The package seems to be expecting him. As he approaches, he notices the nondescript cardboard box closed by precise strips of duct tape, the address printed neatly on top - which means that there isn't much to notice except for the effort the sender put into making it as anonymous as possible.

He doesn't know many people who would pull that off - but he doesn't dare to hope. Not yet.

He sits down at his desk, peering at the box with suspicion. When it doesn't immediately blow up in his face, he fishes a laser cutter from the mess cluttering his desk and carefully slices through the tape sealing the package. It still doesn't explode, so he opens the box a bit more firmly - and immediately wishes he hadn't.

Juno recognizes the object snuggly nestled inside the box in a stuttering heartbeat, despite having seen it only once before, in the hotel room of a casino, far away, long ago. He almost pushes the box away as it contains part of a body (and doesn't it, in a way?) but he finds himself reaching in instead, closing his fingers around the delicate bottle - it's real glass, too, and Juno would think it too fragile to belong in the possessions of a frequent traveller with an inclination to get into troubles if he didn't know better. He turns the bottle into his hands, and the clear amber liquid swirls inside, flecked with gold. He can picture its smell - and the man it belongs to - with a painful clarity that makes his heart _ache._

Juno shakes himself free from the flood of memories lapping at his thoughts, and instead questions the presence of the cologne on his desk after - a year and a half? two years? - without getting even a whiff of it. Is it a message? Nureyev - and Juno's heart twinges again as he allows himself to think that name - has never been known to be straightforward. What could it mean? Juno removes the protective stuffing out of the box to check for a message, lets out a frustrated swear when he finds none - before remembering Rita mentioning something about other mail. He impatiently pushes the box aside and digs into the pile of letters - discards the phone bill, the dubious advertisement for a new club in Kyriakos - stops short when he sees the postcard.

" _Greetings from Dareios - Enceladus!_ " it proclaims in a large bright orange typography slapped over the picture of a nondescript shot of a city nested in an icy crater.

Juno doesn't want to flip it over.

He does it anyway.

Nureyev's tight cursives, familiar from that note all those years ago (which Juno might or might not have burried in a corner of a drawer,) jump at his eye, and it takes Juno a moment to focus enough to actually read what they say.

 _"Dear_ ~~_J_ ~~ _detective,"_ (and Juno winces at the crossed-out initial) _"I do hope this letter finds you in good health. I don’t believe you were expecting to hear from me after our last encounter - nor did I imagine I’d reach out to you again - but it seems that we have some trouble keeping out of each other's way. This is, however, truly the last time you'll ever read me. I'm afraid I've found myself in a rather dire situation, one from which even my talents won't be much use against. This is why I'll be sending - let's call it a "parting gift" - along with this card._

_Remember me fondly._

_P.N."_

Juno stares at the little card between his hands in disbelief, slowly coming to terms with the implications contained in the letters. When they finally register, he chokes back what he refuses to call a sob, and tosses the card back on the table.

"Fuck," he says quietly, but with feeling.

The doorknob turns, and Rita passes her head through the crack of the door.

"Everything okay, boss?" she asks - and to have heard him, she had to have been standing right behind the door the entire time. Ready to fly to his help, should the need arise. Not that she would have been able to do anything; the bomb that exploded is more metaphorical than physical in nature, and nobody has ever found any reliable protection against emotions.

"I'm fine," Juno says, and his voice breaks on the last word, too brittle to be used. He clenches his teeth and tries again. "I'm fine."

It's barely better. Rita doesn't look convinced either.

"Are you sure? You don't look fine."

"Then stop looking and go back to work!" he barks, because it's easier to be angry - easier than to let himself think about Peter Nureyev gone, not only from Juno's life, but from the entire universe. No more masks and games. No more clever fingers and sharp smiles.

Gone.

Rita takes a few hesitant steps inside the office, squinting behind her glasses.

"Mister Steel, are you... crying?"

Juno raises a hand to his cheek and, huh. He guesses he is.

"I guess I am," he sighs, sagging against his chair, all the fight suddenly sucked out of him.

Rita comes to a stop in front of the desk, her eyes taking in the tacky postcard, the bottle of amber essence.

"Perfume?" she notes.

"Cologne," he corrects morosely.

"You got an admirer, Mister Steel?"

Juno sniffles.

"He used to be."

Rita stands there for a while, shifting on her feet, obviously unsure of how to act now. Juno doesn't help, too busy burning a hole through the table with his gaze, eye stinging with unshed tears.

Finally, Rita backs away without pushing for details - for which Juno is impossibly, immeasurably grateful.

“Well, if you say you’re _fine_ , I’ll leave you to it, then,” she says, injecting a false cheerfulness into her words. It poorly masks her worry. She adds more softly: “I’m right there if you need me, boss.”

Juno nods, avoiding her eyes.

“Thank you, Rita.” He’s relieved to hear himself sound more like his usual self, if a bit strained.

Rita quietly closes the door behind her, and Juno is left alone. He picks up the card again, turning it between his fingers over and over again. His attention shifts toward the bottle of cologne; the gold flakes suspended in the rich liquid twinkle invitingly, and he just manages to catch himself before he sprays a bit of it on the inside of his wrist.

Juno shakes his head and decidedly shoves the bottle and the card back into the box. He’s got work to do, and no need for useless distractions.

The box stays tucked away under his desk the whole day; when he leaves that night, he takes it home with him.

 

He manages to forget about the box for two days and a handful of hours. Well, not _forget_ exactly. More like _carefully avoid paying any kind of attention to it_ . It’s in a corner of the main room of his apartment, crammed between a stack of dusty books he hasn’t had the time to read in maybe decades and a damaged crate of old report files he keeps _just in case_. It’s surrounded by things he’s discarded and easily ignored for the past years.

So why can’t he forget about its contents?

It takes a couple of glasses of whiskey and a creeping feeling of cold loneliness on the third night for him to acknowledge the presence of the “gift” again. He stares blearily at it from the couch, half tempted to just dump it through the window and be done with the uneasy longing coursing through his veins when his thoughts stray toward it for too long.

He gets up after a moment of intense debate with himself, still undecided on the ultimate choice. Minimal stumbling brings him closer to the box and he falls more than he kneels in front of it, pulling it to him cautiously, as if there were still a possibility there might be explosives in it.

The glass bottle peers back at him, catching the rough overhead lighting and shining it back at Juno in a somewhat accusing manner.

“Alright, alright,” he grumbles. “I’m here, now.”

He has a moment of hesitation before plunging a hand into the box, like it might actually be full of very angry spiders instead of two inoffensive objects. The vial feels small in the palm of his hand. It’s almost full; Juno doesn’t have any idea of where Nureyev gets it refilled. Part of its charm is the undefinable essence of it. It reminds Juno of warm summer nights spent in crappy underground bars, rich wood and vanilla and patchouli intermingled in an intoxicating combination. But there are notes of... other things, things he can’t recognize but drive him mad with the tiniest hint of their scents.

Juno gives in. He twists the cap of the bottle off and presses the spray toward his bare wrist, his movement coated in a certain sense of urgency. He approaches his arm from his nose and breathes in deeply.

It’s a bit disappointing, to be honest. Not quite right. Too sharp, lacking the roundness and softness it used to have when Nureyev was wearing it. Juno lets his arm fall back down, frowning. It had been _a while_ , since the last time he’d smell that cologne. Maybe he’d made his own idea of it, glorified it from the distance and longing.

He leaves the bottle there on the ground and goes to pick up his unfinished drink. Downing it in one long swallow, he slams the empty glass back on the coffee table and drags himself to the bedroom.

Not for the first time, he goes to sleep with that intoxicating smell filling every corner of his apartment - but it’s not quite right.

Not quite right.

 

When Juno wakes up the next morning, in a dark room saturated by Nureyev’s cologne, there’s a moment during which he’s convinced that he’s back in their hotel room. He quickly realizes his mistake, of course; there’s nobody beside him, no sleeping form to huddle up next to, no regular breathing to intermingle with his own. The smell, though - the smell is almost _right_ , in a way it wasn’t the previous night. Its edges have been soothed, its chemical scent melded with Juno’s human, more organic smell.

It’s still not the exact smell Juno remembers, but it’ll do.

On his way to the office, he distractedly raises his wrist to his face a few times. If he closes his eye, he can almost pretend that everything is alright - that Nureyev is still at home, safe and sound and maybe snoring a bit…

The postcard flashes in Juno’s mind.

Nureyev is dead.

Juno clenches his jaw and concentrates on walking in a straight line instead of collapsing in a side alley and dissolving against a wall like he wants to.

He’s fine. He can do that.

“Hey, boss!” Rita greets him brightly when he pushes the door of the office, and it’s nothing unusual, this feels _normal_ , maybe he can just ignore the way his heart twists every time he allows himself to think -

But then he notices the hint of concern in Rita’s face, the slight shimmer of pity in her eyes, the way her hands grip the armrests of her chair like she’s expecting to have to vault over her desk and gather his pieces back together when he inevitably breaks down.

Juno scowls and storms in direction of his door without answering her. He almost made it into the relative safety of his office when Rita sniffs the air.

“Hey, is that- Have you met with Agent Glass recently, Mister Steel?”

Juno spins around, defensive. Rita has a finger in the air like she’s trying to remember an elusive detail.

“Excuse me?”Juno snaps. Why is he asking her to develop? He doesn’t _want_ to talk about it. Actually, he wants the exact opposite of that. Rita shakes her finger impatiently.

“Or whatever his name was. Tall, dark and handsome? Smelled just like that.”

“Since when do you pay attention to our clients’ _smell_?”

Rita looks at him like he’s dumb.

“Oh, you know I notice everything. And it _was_ pretty noticeable. And you moped for weeks after that case, and I tend to notice the things that upset you. Like Agent Glass.”

Juno gapes. Snaps his mouth shut, and shoots daggers at his assistant.

“That’s- There’s no-”

Rita stares at him patiently.

“I don’t have to tell you anything,” Juno snarls. “In fact, we’re not going to discuss this at all. I’m going to work, and you are going to do what I pay you for. Which is _not_ ,” he insists on the word, “to nose about my private life.”

“But booooss,” Rita pouts. “Nosing about is half the job! Let’s call it practice!”

“Certainly not,” Juno says categorically, and slams his door shut behind him.

In the relative safety of his office, he drops down on his chair and starts rifling through the papers on his desk, trying to get back to where he was the previous day.

The insistent scent of the cologne under his sleeve doesn’t help.

 

He tries to leave the bottle alone after that, he really does. He purposefully abandons it in the most inconvenient places, the ones in which he’s the less likely to look for it, the ones in which he _should_ , by all mean, be able to forget it.

He doesn’t.

The level of liquid steadily diminishes as he uses it - _for the last time_ , he tells himself. _One last time._ The smell gets in his clothes, in his hair, in the grooves of his fingers. It’s haunting, at first, like being pursued by a ghost - but he gets used to it, and after several weeks he ends up surrounding himself with it as if it were a security blanket.

Rita tries to comment on it several times. He always shuts her down.

Juno realizes it might not be the healthiest way to mourn, but when has he ever been known to deal with his emotions in a healthy way? That’s just inconceivable.

He’s sure he could be doing worse, all things considered. He doesn’t drink much more than usual. He gets in a perfectly reasonable amount of troubles for his job. He’d even say he’s doing fine, honestly, if he wasn’t feeling so empty.

If he was the kind of person to be honest with himself, Juno would admit that he misses the anger.

But he’s fine. Really. Just has to avoid thinking about everything that doesn’t have to do with work.

He can tell Rita is getting concerned about him - well, more concerned that she usually is, in any case. She tentatively leaves tupperwares of food on his desk and often comes to check on him before leaving for the night if he’s still working at the office, and calls him when he’s not. She always finishes with a quiet “Take care, Mister Steel.”

Juno knows she’s dying to string together the events from the last few weeks, and so he appreciates her holding back her questions. (She is, without a doubt, moving heaven and earth to discover what happened to Rex Glass, and Juno can’t say he’s not curious to see the outcome of a duel between a woman who can trace anything that ever existed and a man who plain doesn’t exist.)

Mostly, though, she leaves him alone - except for nights like this one, during which she bodily drags him away from his desk and into the street, locking the office behind her.

“Go home, Mister Steel,” she says with a menacing glare. “Or do i have to walk you there to make sure you get some rest?”

“Hey, I’m perfectly capable to take care of myself,” he protests. Rita’s glare harden.

“Obviously not. You haven’t gone home in three days!”

“I have!” He hasn’t. “Why does it matter anyway?”

“It matters because I am _not_ working for a lady who stinks. Or one that might pass out from lack of sleep and/or food in the middle of a case. Go. Home,” she repeats, jabbing a finger into his chest to punctuate her words. “Take a shower! Eat something! Get a decent night of sleep. If you don’t, I’ll know it.”

Rita is small and round and cheerful, yet in that moment Juno can’t think of any sight more intimidating than her tiny frame animated by her motherly-instinct-fueled godly wrath. He inclines his head in defeat.

“Alright,” he grumbles. “Alright, _Mom_ , I’m going.”

There is no real bite behind his words, and Rita smiles warmly and shoos him.

“Go, go! And don’t come back until you look like a human being again!” she calls behind him as he walks away.

He passes a couple of restaurants on his way home, still open and lit by neon lights despite the late hour, but he doesn’t manage to muster enough energy to stop and actually order food. He’s suddenly… very tired.

Tired enough to see things that aren’t here, apparently, because when he pushes open the door of his apartment, there’s a ghost waiting for him on the couch.

"Uh," Juno says. He blinks; when he opens his eye again, the hallucination is still patiently staring at him. Juno shakes his head and starts taking off his coat. He obviously needs some sleep. "Very convincing," he mumbles, bypassing the couch while carefully not looking at the apparition.

"What is?" it says in that rich, silky voice, and Juno stops dead in his tracks, risking a glance. An elegant eyebrow is arched inquiringly in an otherwise perfectly blank face. Juno glances around to check if there are cameras around to record him making a fool of himself talking to empty air, then grumbles:

"You are. Haven't had such a vivid hallucination in a while."

Juno distractedly pinches himself to make sure he's not sleeping, passed out once again at his desk while working too late - but no, he distinctly remembers Rita kicking him out of the office and threatening to confiscate his keys if he ever came back before morning.

"You aren't hallucinating. Or dreaming," the apparition says, and its expression relaxes, something akin to a smile tugging at its lips.  
It takes a few moments for Juno to process it - Peter Nureyev in his apartment, alive, alive, _alive_ \- and when he does, he takes an involuntary step backward. A flash of hurt passes over Nureyev's face, before he can cover it up with a carefully neutral mask.

"Hello, Juno."

His tone is flat, a bit bitter, and it plunges and twists into Juno's gut like one of the thief's daggers. Nureyev stares Juno down for a while longer, pinning him into place, eyes as dark as onyx and twice as hard. When he finally looks away, Juno sags like a puppet with cut strings. He makes his way unsteadily toward the open kitchen, mechanically grabbing a glass and the bottle of whiskey that is a permanent fixture on the bar these days. He pours himself a drink - doesn't offer any to Nureyev, since the man doesn't look like he'll be accepting anything from Juno anytime soon, short of an astronomical amount of excuses or maybe his own sorry life.

Juno has to swallow down half his glass before he's even able to speak.

"I thought you were dead," he says dumbly. Nureyev shrugs, his gaze resolutely fixed on the coffee table in front of him.

"So did I, to be honest. It came... very close, this time."

He doesn't volunteer further explanation, and Juno doesn't ask. What he does ask, after another gulp of alcohol, is:

"Why did you come back?"

Nureyev tenses up defensively and points at the bottle of cologne Juno hadn't notice sitting on a corner of the coffee table.

"Dropped by to pick this up. It's not that easy to come by, you know." He frowns. "I remember it being more full."

Juno dissimulates his shame by downing the rest of his drink.

"You could have taken it and left," he rasps. "You were waiting for me. Why?"

Nureyev chuckles, and if would be a familiar sound if not for how hollow it rings.

"My, detective, still full of questions, aren't we? I simply wanted to let you know I was safe." His eyes slide in Juno's direction, dark and narrow. "Now, I'm wondering if you care either way."

And here it is again, the knife in Juno's stomach - cruel, unforgiving and fully deserved. His tongue feels numb as he tries to protest.

“I do! I- Nureyev, I thought- I thought you were gone, and-” - _and I thought it was going to kill me_ , he doesn’t say, because that’s too real, too painful to put into words, so instead he finishes weakly: “I’m sorry.”

Nureyev springs to his feet and strides away from the couch; his back is turned to Juno now, and only the way his arms are closed around his middle betrays his agitation. Juno hesitantly steps around the kitchen counter to get a little closer.

“Nureyev? Please, believe me. I am so sorry.”

The man spins on his heels, gaze harsh as his hands fall to his sides and tighten into fists.

“ _Sorry?_ ” he spits, and the rage in his posture, so unlike his usual easy countenance, makes Juno recoil until his back hit the bar. “Sorry isn’t going to fix what you did, Juno. Sorry isn’t going to make me feel better. What am I supposed to do with your  _sorry_?”

Nureyev looks cold, angry - but there’s also terror in there, a crippling despair coming from seeing your worst fears come to life. He is shaking, his breathing hard and erratic. A flash of second-hand memories passes through Juno’s mind: a red room, a betrayal, and the knife in an old man's back. Juno is suddenly very aware of the deadly blade that's bound to be hidden on Nureyev's person, and how much he deserves to get stabbed with it. But he doesn't think Nureyev is going to kill him. Mag was threatening to murder an entire city; Juno didn't hurt anybody but Nureyev himself.

Nureyev opens his mouth, but before he can articulate whatever he has to say, he seems to think better of it and looks away. His shoulders drop with a sigh, and the disappointment clearly written over his features makes Juno winces. He can deal with anger. Disappointment, not so much.

When the thief looks up at Juno again, he looks incredibly vulnerable, eyes wide and pleading.

“I thought we were on the same page, Juno. Was it… did you only want one night? I would have given you one night, even without the promise of more to come. I would have given you the world, if you had asked. All you had to do was _ask._ ”

Juno takes a shaky breath, feeling his throat swelling up with tears.

“It wasn’t just for one night!” he cries out, taking a step forward. And another. And another, until he’s only an arm’s length away from Nureyev - Nureyev, pale and trembling, looking as fragile as if he were made of glass. Juno swallows, and continues laboriously: “I wanted it. I really, really wanted to be with you. I just- I realized it was impossible.”

Nureyev’s expression turns to bewilderment.

“Impossible?” he whispers. “No- How- What do you mean?”

“Well, I’m- God, look at me, I’m a mess. I make terrible decisions and I hurt people and you might not be the best person in the world,” - Nureyev snorts discreetly at the understatement and Juno ignores him - “but you don’t deserve this. _I_ don’t deserve _you_. You’re so… bright. You’re going places. I can’t even leave that shithole of a town, and I won’t force you to choose between me and the entire rest of the universe.” Juno huffs frustratedly and crosses his arms, looking decidedly at anything but Nureyev’s face.

The silence stretches like a rubber band, taut and ready to snap. Then Nureyev speaks, and it does.

“Are you…” Breathless, then cutting: “Are. You. Dense.”

Juno’s eye jerks up back to him, and - wow, Nureyev is _pissed._ Juno gapes.

“Excuse me?”

The thief is _vibrating_ now, dark eyes flashing like daggers. He closes the distance between the two of them before Juno can react and grabs him by the shoulders, looming over him.

“You don’t deserve me? How can you decide what’s best for me?”

“That’s just-” Juno tries to interrupt, but Nureyev’s fingers dig painfully into his biceps, and his jaw clacks shut.

“No,” Nureyev hisses. “You have said your piece. Now it’s _my_ turn. You don’t get to decide what’s good for me. If you would have told me that _I’m_ not good for you, I would have understood. You get to make your own decisions, but _don’t you make mine for me_. That responsibility is not yours to bear. You have no right to take the whole weight of the world on your shoulders. Stop being such a goddamn self-sacrificial idiot!”

He gives Juno a little shake at that, and Juno stares at him, eye wide. He vaguely remembers Sasha yelling at him for similar reasons - as well as Nureyev’s pleas, muffled by a door Juno had locked to protect him.

“You’re making a mistake,” he blurts out, desperately trying to make Nureyev understand that he’d be better off giving up on him. Nureyev just frowns, but his expression immediately soften in something that looks too close to pity for Juno’s tastes.

“Even if I am, let me make mistakes,” Nureyev begs. “You know I’m no stranger to it.”

His tone is impossibly gentle, as is the hand he raises to cup Juno’s cheek, swiping a thumb under his ruined right eye. Juno can’t look at him right now, so he doesn’t.

“Are we gonna kiss and make up? Just like that?” he can’t stop himself from asking sardonically, trying to keep the hopeful note out of his voice. Nureyev huffs.

“Oh, no, Juno. I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

He might as well have ripped Juno’s heart from his chest now and then. Juno sets his features in a deep scowl to avoid giving in to his urge to scream and moves to bat away the hand cradling his face, but Nureyev catches his fingers, drops an apologetic kiss on his knuckles.

“...That came out wrong. Juno, dear, look at me.”

The term of endearment startles Juno into meeting his eyes - and, god, if Nureyev doesn’t stop looking at him with such open affection _right now this moment_ , Juno is really going to cry.

“I was contesting the _just like that_ part of your question. Not the _kissing and making up_ one. I think we should have a real discussion - one we should have had two years ago, had you not up and left in the night.”

Juno withers under his reproachful tone and the familiar taste of guilt at the back of his throat, but the movement of Nureyev’s thumb, comfortingly running along Juno’s scarred index finger, moderates the sting. Finally, Nureyev breaks the silence.

“Juno, do you… care about me?”

That’s such a stupid question Juno doesn’t know how to answer at first.

“Are-are you kidding me?” he stammers in the end. “I left because I care! I meant it, what I said in the tomb. I meant all of it. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, and I don’t want to ruin it.”

“Juno,” Nureyev sighs, shaking his head fondly. “We’re going to have to talk about your self-sabotaging ways, one day.”

“What about them?” Juno asks, mesmerized as the thief presses another kiss to his fingers.

“Well, for one, you almost got rid of me. Wouldn’t _that_ have been a shame?” he teases with a toothy smile. Juno slaps a fake frown on his face so that Nureyev doesn’t know exactly how effective his words are, but the thief’s knowing smirk tells him he’s failing at it completely.

“How would that have been a bad thing?” he mutters, and Nureyev smiles at him sweetly.

“I missed you, you know,” he says - honest, open, no mask or pretenses in front of Juno - and Juno’s breath catches in his throat at the enormity of the mistake he made by trying to leave that man behind.

“Missed you too,” he murmurs, and lets Nureyev pull him into a tight hug. Juno notes, absently, the missing scent of his cologne - which _Juno_ is wearing, but it’s not the same thing.

They stand in a comfortable silence for a while, clinging to each other, sharing heat as if to make up for years of cold. Belatedly, Juno remembers his negligence to personal hygiene during the last few days and tries to pull away, but Nureyev just holds on a bit tighter.

“Do you know the myth of Proserpine?” Nureyev murmurs into Juno’s hair.

Juno lifts his head from where it is cushioned against Nureyev’s shoulder and squints up at him, taken aback by the question.

“The- what? The old… Earth… myth?” he guesses. He might have read a tale about it once, something about explaining the cycle of the seasons - but there aren’t much of those on Mars, so it didn’t particularly stick. What does it have to do with anything?

“Yes. The story of a goddess of life who got abducted by, then fell in love with, a god of death. Her mother, however, didn’t agree with it, and brought her back where she came from, in the land of the livings - but not before Proserpine ate six pomegranate seeds, binding her to the land of the dead as well. Thus she was forced to move between the two worlds, half a year on the thriving planet, half of it in the darkness of its depths.”

Nureyev’s voice is soothing, and by the end of his anecdote, Juno is about ready to fall asleep standing. He hugs the other man a bit closer and mumbles:

“Did any of this had a point?”

A chuckle answers him.

“Well, beside comparing us to a pair of star-crossed divine lovers, I thought we might find inspiration in their story. You can’t leave, I can’t stay, and it was unfair of me to make you pick a side. Let’s find a compromise.”

This gives Juno pause. Is Nureyev suggesting what he thinks he’s suggesting?

“You mean like… six months on Mars, six months in space?” he ventures, unconvinced. His business isn’t going to take well to being closed for months at a time, and he can’t imagine the thief comfortably staying in one place for a while without having a heist to plan.

“Maybe not over such a long time,” Nureyev concedes. “How about… say, three weeks every six months - if we aren’t busy with our respective work, of course. It’ll be like vacations.”

Juno scoffs, but he’s too comfortable to push Nureyev away.

“I don’t need any vacations,” Juno complains weakly. Nureyev laughs and nuzzles his hair.

“I know you don’t, darling.” He pulls away slowly, as if with great difficulty, and looks down on Juno with a small, private smile. “Now, I know for a fact you’ve been absolutely terrible at taking care of yourself lately. How about I take you out for dinner?”

Juno wouldn’t mind crashing in his bed right now and dealing with the hunger in the morning, but he’s not quite ready to leave Nureyev yet - not again, not so soon - so he nods.

“Alright, let’s- let’s do that.” Then the thief’s words register, and he frowns: “Hey, how did you know I was terrible at...?”

Nureyev laughs, and goes to grab Juno’s coat for him.

“I still do know you well, detective. Shall we go?”

Juno shakes his head, allowing himself to feel happy for the first time in a while, and joins him.


End file.
